Do the Opposite #52 - A Year of Weekly Newsletters, Habit Consistency: How Not to Skip a Day, Gain Control of Free Time

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Habit Consistency: How Not To Skip A Day

What derails the formation of new habits the most? You guessed it, skipping days! As soon as you skip one day, it's a slippery slope from then on. Similar to cheating on a diet by eating one forbidden cookie and, followed by feelings of guilt and despair, proceeding to binge eat, skipping a day of a new habit makes us feel guilty, uninspired and ready to give up.

I've been reading books by Jocko Willink and I liked a way he suggested to deal with the Resistance we feel some days, when we just don't feel like doing the habit or "have too much on our plate" and rationalize our way out of it. He suggests we do it anyway mechanically, just going through the motions.

I know this works because I've tested that many times with this newsletter and more recently with my meditation habit (I've started on Jan 1st this year and have been meditating every day since). Some days there is so much stress and so many things to do, schedule and think about that meditation is the last thing I want to do. I do it anyway. There are no miracles in this approach, I don't necessarily feel great after meditation on that particular day, but it gets me to do it consistently and truly makes it a habit.

Sometimes you and I will fail to make ourselves do the thing we committed to even knowing the "going through the motions" method and using our willpower to "ignite the engine" and start the habit and that's OK too. However, knowing and implementing this method will definitely improve your success rate with habit formation.

Do the Opposite Celebrates: A Year of Weekly Newsletters!

Thank you so much for reading the DTO newsletter, I am very grateful you've decided to devote your time and attention to the things I write and share. I always try to find resources that have the biggest potential for changing your lives (as well as mine:) for the better and I will continue to do so in the Year 2!

If you enjoy the newsletter, the best way you can help it grow and improve is to tell your friends about it! To the people you know will benefit from the topics and themes we cover in DTO.

Articles

1) "Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore" by Alexis C. Madrigal
I'm sharing this because I've been thinking about this a lot recently asking my friends about their phone habits as well as examining my own. These days I don't ever pick up the phone no matter who's calling. The reason is that whenever I do, it's spam calls. Nobody really calls anybody anymore, there is no reason to. Just to clarify, I am talking about regular phone calls here, not video chats. If anyone really needs to get in touch with me, they can email me. If it's some official organization regarding something important, at worst they will always leave a voicemail.

I wonder if it's very similar to how pagers went away. At one point in time, a lot of people had them and used that particular way of communicating. Then, as better options became available, pagers slowly disappeared. Same is happening with phone calls, and I think that's for the best. So "Don't Call Me Maybe".

2) "The Myth of 'Learning Styles' " by Olga Khazan
The popular belief that, in learning, each person falls under one of the learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Reading or Kinesthetic seems to be wrong, research indicates. Oops! :) A great book I'd like to recommend for learning "how to learn" is "Make It Stick" by Mark A. McDaniel and Peter C. Brown.

3) "Physicists Take Their Closest Look Yet at an Antimatter Atom" by Sophia Chen
I've always been fascinated by antimatter, but I never really understood what it was. This article does a great job of explaining that. It goes over new experiments done by physicists at CERN, where in temperatures close to absolute zero (-327.15 degrees Celcius) they are making antihydrogen atoms from antiprotons and positrons ("anti-electron" in a way). In regular conditions these would be extremely unstable as when they bump into regular matter, they annihilate. The higher the temperature the more and faster particles move around, and vice versa. In this extreme cold, the scientists are able to hold the antihydrogen atoms for 24 hours, something that hasn't been done before.

Videos

1) "How to Gain Control of Your Free Time" | Laura Vanderkam
Often, when we consider starting a positive habit like exercise, reading or meditating, we dismiss the idea because "we just don't have time". There are a ton of commitments in our life already, and even the thought of adding a new one and being consistent in it has us running away in the opposite direction. Laura's helps us realize how we can make time for the important things and projects by analyzing our priorities and examining which activities (input) bring us the most results (output).

2) "One Life-Changing Class You Never Took" | Alexa von Tobel
Personal finance is one of the common themes of this newsletter because of how important it is. It affects not only your material possessions, but a lot more: your opportunities, the comfort level of your life, the stress levels of it, your relationships with others, the free time you have available. The effect of any financial decision compounds with consequences over time. Decisions that seem temporary and tiny snowball into gigantic life currents in the years to come. Alexa espouses personal finance and financial literacy in her talk. If you're not really excited about finance and a bit bored, consider how your life might change if you start educating yourself about it (through the boredom as it may be :) ) and making different financial decisions daily from now on.

3) "How to Make a Behavior Addictive" | Zoë Chance
Zoë shares with us her addiction and you will be surprised by what it is. The talk goes to show how powerful the little mind-tricks that play on our motivation are. Our brains don't care what the habit is: given the right triggers, rewards and other cues, the brain will produce a habit that's hard to kick even if you want to.

Tweet of the Week

Ethos

Quotes

"Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth."
― Jules Verne, "A Journey to the Center of the Earth"

"Who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?"
― The Merovingian, "The Matrix Reloaded"

"Until you actually start making something, your brilliant idea is just that, an idea."
― Jason Fried, "Rework"

"If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position hire the best writer. it doesn't matter if the person is marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever, their writing skills will pay off. That's because being a good writer is about more than writing clear writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. great writers know how to communicate. they make things easy to understand. they can put themselves in someone else's shoes. they know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. Writing is making a comeback all over our society... Writing is today's currency for good ideas."
― Jason Fried, "Rework"

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Keep doing the opposite,
Alex Kallaway
Website: dotheoppo.site
Twitter: twitter.com/ka11away